They beat Minnesota 88-81 in a top-10 showdown Saturday, and still we can't say what it indicated. Since there were two games for the price of one, which showdown do you mean -- the part where Indiana outscored the Gophers 52-29 in the first half, or were outscored 52-36 in the second?

With Duke and Arizona already losing this week, and Michigan a possible casualty Sunday at Ohio State, No. 5 Indiana might be back to No. 2 by Monday, and still we aren't sure if the Hoosiers should be.

"The difference now is a year ago. We would have been ecstatic with that victory,'' Tom Crean said. "I want them to enjoy it, but we have different expectations now.''

The Indiana coach had places to go and NFL playoffs games to see Saturday. Crean's brother-in-laws are John and Jim Harbaugh ‚?? one leader of the Baltimore Ravens, the other the San Francisco 49ers ‚?? so he was certainly headed for a TV, right?

"I will now,'' he said. Translation: Had the Hoosiers let a 23-point lead vanish (Minnesota cut it to three in the final minute), he might never have left the film projector.

But before kickoff, what about his team?

The Hoosiers were No. 1 before a loss to Butler. Then struggled against Iowa. And Saturday, it all depended when you were watching. In the first half, they looked ready for your March bracket.

In the second half, they had one assist and 11 turnovers, and missed so many free throws (13), you wondered if the line had been pushed back to 28 feet.

They featured a balanced scoring lineup with all five starters in double figures, but a silent bench that did not provide a field goal or assist.

"There's no question with the long season,'' Crean said, "We've got to be a lot better.''

Maybe this is when a team knows it is growing up. It beats a top 10 opponent, but afterward the players' faces look as if they're in the dentist chair, because they're thinking about what went wrong and not what went right.

The words the Hoosiers were using afterward did not exactly sound like a victory celebration.

"The second half, we can't accept that," guard Jordan Hulls said. "It's going to get us, if we don't hit our free throws.''

Said Victor Oladipo, who led his team with 20 points but also fouled a Minnesota 3-point shooter three times: "As a leader on defense, I cannot make those mistakes. I feel like I almost blew the game today.''

Freshman guard Yogi Ferrell, who had eight assists and only two turnovers in 37 minutes: "We got complacent.''

All that talk was better than philharmonic music to Crean's ears, who considers his team in the midst of a crash course on championship orientation.

"We never stopped playing hard, but now it's got to be more than that,'' he said. "We've got to figure out when we can really put teams away.''

The Hoosiers hadn't learned that when they were No. 1. That's how Butler escaped them. But ranked No. 1 or No. 5, Crean said, the process goes on.

"I haven't seen a change in them. They were disappointed when we lost to Butler but they got right back to work,'' he said. "They had a film session themselves the next day. I read all the notes, with no coaches in there, and they were really on point.

"We're maturing.''

Time will tell if it is enough to match the pre-season No. 1 promise. Saturday's message was mixed. But bottom line, a win is a win.

"There are more big games down the road,'' Oladipo said. "We have to watch this tape and see what happened the second half, what we did wrong, and correct it.''